Mithros Bless Us, Every One
by KrisEleven
Summary: A collection of winter/holiday themed one-shots set in the Tortall-verse. Chapter 5, On This Cold Night (Our Bed is Still Warm): There is a fierce winter's storm on their wedding night.
1. Unlikely Gifts

**A/N **Same format as all my other collections! This one will include any of my winter/holiday themed one-shots that don't have a home in the other collections I have. They'll only be updated this time of the year, I would think, but you never know. I write some weird shit. This first chapter takes place Lady Knight. It was written last winter for Goldenlake's Wishlist event.

**Summary: **Wyldon stared for a long moment at the name on the Midwinter gift that had been delivered to his office by the servants overnight. He had not been expecting any gifts, so why was there a gift in his office marked with Keladry of Mindelan's name?

* * *

Wyldon stared for a long moment at the name on the Midwinter gift that had been delivered to his office by the servants overnight. He had not been expecting any gifts; he saved that sort of carrying on for when he was at home with his wife and daughters, not for when he was commanding officer at a fort in the middle of the second year of a long and drawn-out war with Scanra. He had never encouraged this sort of behaviour. Even Jesslaw had never gotten him a present for Midwinter.

So why was there a gift in his office marked with Keladry of Mindelan's name?

He took the present over to his chair by the fireplace, which had been stoked into cheery flames before he had arrived fifteen minutes ago. Turning the plainly wrapped parcel over, he contemplated his old student's motives. If it had been anyone else, he would have suspected they were trying to make up for something they had done (albeit in the wrong way entirely, if meant to influence Wyldon's opinion), but committing treason, running away behind enemy lines, saving a camp's population from enemy hands and delivering the death of the main weapon's manufacturer of the enemy was not a series of actions that was adequately responded to with Midwinter gift-giving.

In addition, Wyldon thought Keladry of Mindelan could not have been _forced_ at _swordpoint_into apologizing for rescuing her people.

And Wyldon of Cavall would never have asked it of her.

The thought made him smile slightly as he found a fold in the paper and carefully peeled the wrapping away from the box that held his gift. He folded the paper and put it aside before he opened the small box and looked down into it.

The waving porcelain cat looked back up at him.

Luckily, there was a note explaining that entirely unlikely turn of events.

_Sir Wyldon,_

_In the Yamani Islands, these cats represent good luck. I don't have many left to give away this Midwinter, and could not think of someone who deserved and needed good fortune more than you. _

_You probably think it is a foolish idea, but since I cannot give you and your men luck for the rest of the war, I will give you this._

_Happy Midwinter._

_Keladry of Mindelan_

Wyldon looked from the note back down the cat that still waved at him from its nest in the paper that padded its box. They could bring luck? Utterly ridiculous. And yet...he had always liked cats.

He took the cat out gently, and set her note and the box on top of the folded and discarded wrapping. Putting the cat gently on the mantel where he could see it from his seat behind his desk, but where it would not be noticed by Jesslaw if he came in and sat in his usual chair took some rearranging of the sparse decorations.

He sat in his office chair and smiled at the waving figure that looked back at him. He _had_ always liked cats, and who could turn down a little bit of luck in the middle of a war?


	2. Snow-Induced Insanity

**A/N **This one was also written last year for the Wishlist on Goldenlake, and is set sometime during the beginning of the PotS quartet _and_ the SotL quartet.

**Summary: **The pages had always gotten into trouble when snow started to fall.

* * *

"I can't _believe_ you got me up so early. I swear by Mithros you lot are _all insane_."

"Oh, stop complaining, Neal! It's the first snowfall of the year and we have the day off! What _better_ to do than go out on the pond and have some fun skating?"

"Sleeping would be better. Having feeling in my fingers; that would be better. Having private lessons with the Stump would even be better than freezing my limbs off out here. I don't have any extra, Seaver. I need the ones I've got."

"Except for the top one, eh, Neal?"

"Leave my hair alone, Hollyrose!"

"I _like_ the snow."

"You like everything, Owen. Only someone completely insane enjoys something that is not only cold, but cold _and _wet."

* * *

"_Oh, stop pouting, Trebond."_

"_I am not pouting."_

"_What do you call this?"_

"_I do _not_ look like that_. _Raoul. Get that stupid look off your face, Goldenlake, or I will _take_ it off._"

"_You'd have to step off the path into the bad old snow to do it, Alan."_

"_It's really not that bad, you know."_

"_It is cold and it is wet, Gary. Insanity may run in my family, but I am not _completely _addled yet."_

* * *

"Kel likes the snow."

"Kel is smarter than that."

"No, I do. It's quiet."

"It's quiet inside. And warm."

"Are you going to whine all day, Queenscove?"

"Yes."

"Fine. Goodbye, then."

"What? Wait! You already dragged me out of bed, you're not... Oh, fine! Oh, I have snow in my _shoes_."

* * *

"_It's your own fault, Alan."_

"_If I lose all of my fingers and go home in disgrace, I am blaming you. Stop laughing."_

"_You're not even blue. You'll be fine."_

"_If I turn blue and die, I am haunting you until _you_ die."_

"_We will get you some hot cider and you will be _fine_. Raoul, you really might want to stop laughing at him. And, Alan, he couldn't have known the snow drift was going to be that deep."_

"_He could have _not thrown me in it_! Stop _laughing_, Goldenlake!"_

"_I can't help it- ahhh. No! Not in my jacket! Alan, stop! That's _cold_!"_

* * *

"There you are, Kel. Where is everyone else?"

"They're waiting around the corner to ambush you with snowballs. I thought you might want to know."

"You're a true friend, Kel."

"No problem."

"It _is_ kind of nice and quiet, isn't it?"

"Until they catch up to you with their arsenal of snowballs, at least?"

"Well, I suppose the only thing to do would be to tactically retreat to a strategic position... say, inside where the snowballs will be rendered useless by a lack of freezing air?"

"_Or_ you could ambush their position with the help of an inside informant."

"I am bound to freeze to death, aren't I?"

"I think so."

"Might as well take Merric out as well. Let's get them."


	3. Intruders

**A/N **This takes place at Pirate's Swoop, during the Immortals series, and was written for the Advent Challenge on Goldenlake for the prompt 'winter's warmth'.

**Summary: **They were unrecognizable, these intruders in Maude's kitchen, all covered in heavy jackets and hats, wrapped in scarves and melting snow.

* * *

The door burst open, wet boots on stone floors leaving puddles as six little feet wandered in, bringing with them a drift of snow and a blast of cold air that caused even the hearth fires to shrink and quiver.

They were unrecognizable, these intruders in Maude's kitchen, all covered in heavy jackets and hats, wrapped in scarves and melting snow. The littlest two were so bundled against the cold that their arms stuck out from their sides as they waddled into the warmth and allowed the bigger of them to push the door closed behind them.

A scarf was left to trail on the ground. Mittens flung onto tables and chairs. A jacket was draped across the doorhandle, left to drip as the snow caking its sleeves melted slowly in the face of the cozy warmth the kitchen provided. Soon enough there were three children sitting on the heart, red hair sweaty from their play outside, cheeks bright red and chapped from the winter wind, eyelids drooping and jaws stretching in yawns. A little strawberry-blonde head dipped against her older brother's shoulder. A redheaded boy pulled a younger brother away from the dangers of the fire.

George walked into the kitchen, not looking forward to wandering out into the winter snowfall to call his children in from their play. He stopped as he entered the room and saw all three curled up together. Aly had forgotten one mitten, Thom still had his boots on, Alan's scarf was tangled around his ears, but they slept peacefully in a tangle of limbs in front of the merry kitchen fire.


	4. First Snowflake

**A/N** This one is based off of Pierce's short story Student of Ostriches, although these characters are mentioned briefly in one of the SotL books, as well. Written for the Advent Challege for the prompt 'the first snowflake'!

**Summary:** The Shang Falcon and his new student are on the road north to Maren. She has never before left the hot southern deserts. He has, unknowingly, failed at convincing her snow is real.

* * *

For the first time since they had passed through Carthak during its monsoon season, Joesh Valany had decided to seek out an inn for the night. It wasn't that he had anything against inns, as a rule – they afforded an opportunity to meet new people and some of the best rumours could be found over a mug of their ale or ciders – but staying out on the road was easier; with Kylaia just beginning her training as a Shang, a decade later than was normal, he had a lot to teach her before they reached the Shang temple in Maren. She was naturally gifted in a way Valany had never seen before, and her training was going swiftly, but that didn't mean the thirteen year old couldn't sometimes get overwhelmed as her life changed around her. One look at the sky, and Valany knew that his student was about to get another first in her experiences outside her southern village, and she might very well appreciate being inside for this one.

Glancing back at her, he almost laughed. Her dark eyes were all he could see through her layers of clothes. It wasn't really that cold – Valany still had his jacket open, his handwraps and hat tucked into his pack – but Kylaia had never been out of the deep southern deserts, where the heat stayed steady somewhere above boiling for most of the year, and even the summer rains didn't really dissipate it. She had never experienced a cold day, and this was shaping up to be one of the first of the winter season.

"We should be coming up on the town of Foundling Row," he called over his shoulder to his student, "if my memory of this part of Tyra serves me correctly –"

"No assurances, then," his student replied in accented but functional Common. He threw an unimpressed glare, but couldn't be sure if it had quelled her, since her face was completely obscured by hood and scarf. He considered muttering about how sarcasm had _not_ been part of her language lessons, but decided it would only encourage her. Kylaia's quick wit was hard to keep up with, sometimes, and he felt the need to keep hold of some of the prestige he still held as her Shang teacher as long as possible.

"_If_ my memory serves me correctly – which it _will_ –" he couldn't resist adding, "then we will have some rooms for the night, before the snow comes."

Kylaia made a noise halfway between amused and exasperated, and all the way into disbelieving. "Right, your _snow_."

Valany caught the meaning immediately, and couldn't help but grin, without turning to allow her to see it. He wasn't what anyone would describe as mischievous, and hadn't entertained the notion that some of the things he described to his student would be dismissed as being too outlandish to be believed, until now. Thinking back, he seems to recall the story in which he'd first mentioned snow _did_ involve the Wildcat, her student and a handful of Scanran smugglers in a rather elaborate downhill chase, so he couldn't really blame her. Looking at the sky again, Valany was fairly sure they would get a sizable amount of snow overnight, and the childish side of him was tempted to simply allow her to wake up to it in the morning, just for the entertainment he was going to get out of her surprise.

He just managed to rein in his unexpectedly immature impulses and turned to begin teaching her about some of the weather she should expect this far north, keeping his expression as serious as possible.

A single snowflake fell between them, drifting through the air in a spiral before it landed on Kylaia's nose.

She was cross-eyed, staring at it. Valany doubled over, silent for a long moment before he could catch his breath enough to laugh.


	5. On This Cold Night

**A/N **Another written for Goldenlake's Advent Calendar, this one for Wishing Well Week! Elsceetaria and Elizabeth Collins wanted a Neal/Yuki sweetness fic.

**Summary**: There is a fierce winter's storm on their wedding night.

* * *

The shutters rattled against the cold wind, icy pellets of snow barraging the panes. The wind entered the room with every gust, over the presents half-opened on the table and floor. It passed by the fireplace, stirring the ashes of the fire that had been left to gutter and go out over the course of the night.

The room was cold, the servants having abandoned it for this evening, leaving its occupants to their privacy.

The bed was warm, Neal pressed against Yuki's back as he whispered some poetry into her ear, the breath of him on her cheek and the ridiculous sweetness of his words making her turn her head to giggle into her pillow.

Neal smiled and pressed a kiss to his new bride's neck. Yuki turned her head swiftly, catching her new husband's lips with her own.

The wind rattled the shutters and the room cooled against its onslaught, but the bed was warm.


End file.
